


Step... 2, 3, 4, Step

by HyourinmaruIce



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Beauty and the Beast, Dancing, F/M, Tale as Old as Time, dance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 08:41:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyourinmaruIce/pseuds/HyourinmaruIce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle hears Rumpelstiltskin singing</p>
            </blockquote>





	Step... 2, 3, 4, Step

She had never heard him sing before. It wasn’t a song she had heard before either, it sounded incredibly old and it was beautiful.

“Tale as old as time…”

Belle poked her head out her door and looked down the long hallway outside her bedroom, one given to her after a few weeks in the dungeon.

“True as it can be…”

It was coming, not from the main hall, but from further down the hallway in the opposite direction. Belle turned her head in the direction his voice came from, the hallway’s bleak stone making the voice ring louder than it should.

“Barely even friends,”

She stepped out of her room, her blue dress swishing around her ankles, and hesitantly began in the direction she had never really gone before.

“Then somebody bends,”

She rather liked this song she decided.

“Unexpectedly,”

His voice was beautiful, full and rich with a hint of a brogue she was sure she had not heard before now. She was approaching a turn in the hallway, her bare feet silent against cobbles.

“Just a little change…”

She’d never gone father into his tower then this before. The turn led to a small hallway, stretching to her left, and the hallway led to a stair case that wound up and up… the only reason she knew this was because Rum had told her.

“Small to say the least,”

Her nickname for him came after weeks of spending time with him, serving him tea, making his meals, laughing as she found that he was terrible at taking care of silk.

“Both a little scared, neither one prepared,”

She almost stumbled as she went up the steps, his voice was mesmerizing. It just drifted and swelled on each note, making her mind melt.

“Beauty and the…”

She waited for the next word to come out in the mellifluous voice she had been hearing, but instead… it came out as a sob.

“Beast….”

She reached the top of the stairs and instead of seeing another hallway, or another library similar to the one in her own tower, there was a single room. It was a ball room.

“Ever just the same…”

His voice went back the the rich hue it was before.

“Ever a surprise,”

And as she stepped into the large room, she saw him… and he was… enchanting.

“Ever as before!”

Step… two three four… step….

“Ever just as sure,”

His dance took him this way and that, his feet gliding across the smooth white marble. His arms circled about him as he shifted from left to right, his head tilted to the side and his eyes closed.

“AS THE SUN WILL RISE!”

His voice rose up and filled the room, circling his lithe form as a small smile showed on his face. She was so unused to seeing him like this… free and expressive.

She sat down in the doorway and curled her feet under her so as to avoid walking over and joining him.

He paused once, facing away from her, his arm going slack at his sides for a few brief seconds before he took up dancing again, his voice rumbling over her skin once more.

“Tale as old as time,”

Step… two, three, four… step

“Tune as old as song,”

He was wearing gold, a beautiful gold vest that complemented his copper colored shirt beneath. She sighed as she realized he was also wearing his black leather pants and boots.

“Bitter sweet and strange”

The room was gorgeous as well. Golden embellishments highlighted the corners and the ceiling as small vines covered most of the walls. The floor was pure white marble and the rest was empty. An empty ballroom.

“Finding you can change,”

She stood and began tracing her fingers along the wall as she made her way deeper into the ballroom, never letting her eyes leave him. A thought twirled in her mind as she listened.

“Learning you were wrong…”

She knew he had to hear her footsteps, but he didn’t seem inclined to turn to her. Her thought worked its way further into action.

“Certain as the sun,”

Or perhaps he didn’t, maybe he was so deep into the words he was spinning that he wasn’t paying attention to little old her. She was going to do it… she was going to use that little thought of hers.

“Rising in the east…”

She took a breath and held it for one moment, a single moment, and then stepped out and took his arms.  
His eyes shot open and he gasped.

She sang the next line as her right hand tightened around his, “Tale as old as time,”

She placed her other hand on his shoulder and grinned at him, his slack jaw shut and he accepted the embrace before continuing the song, one she had only guessed the words of, “Song as old as rhyme,”

Step…two, three, four, … step.

He laughed as they sang the next part together, Belle fumbling over the words but smiling anyway, “Beauty and the Beast,”  
He slowed his dancing pace, once that had been beautifully elegant a moment ago, to a slow waltz that Belle knew well, “Tale as old as time,”

“Song as old as Rhyme,”

His laughter faded and his smile, one that had been carefree a moment ago, faded as well… he disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Belle could only guess at the last line of the song as she let her voice ring, “Beauty and the…”

She choked down a sob, “Beast,”


End file.
